Why DC heroes are destined to fail in film from now on

How many films has Marvel released in this last decade? How many films has DC released in this last decade? It's obvious that you can remember way more modern films based on Marvel comics than on DC. Marvel has tried, at first they failed many times with a lot of their superheroes but they kept releasing films. They were constant and optimistic about them until they finally managed to craft their art with this new wave of Marvel hero films starting with Iron Man (2008).



These new films that Marvel has released (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk)  are actually good, decent films. I mean the characters are well-developed and also they are incredibly well adapted to the big screen, the films are entertaining and you can really relate to these heroes. The only downside for me are the villains, non of these movies have great or memorable villains, just Ok villains. But despite of that, Marvel has managed to release good solid movie after another in a short period of time without any of them been disappointing. And let me tell you, the success that they are having right now is not a lucky streak, the success that they are having right now is the results of pure trial and error.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="258"] And when I say trial and error I MEAN trial and error[/caption]

Starting with X Men in 2000, they have been releasing films for the last 12 years and in this last 4 it seems that they have finally manage to make all their films solid, good and constant culminating with The Avengers.



And what about DC? well... Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy was enough to battle all these Marvel superheroes films alone, but now it's over, The Man of Steel is the next in line, but c'mon, Superman can't battle alone The Avengers as Batman did. Batman is frozen now, Superman alone and DC is pretty much screwed.

But now let's think this trough Ok? After all those films that Marvel has released, hero film after hero film for this last decade. I'm afraid that there's no room for DC heroes anymore and from now on DC heroes are pretty screwed in the art of cinema.

And these are my reasons why DC heroes are destined to fail in film from now on:

1) Marvel already owns the superhero film genre, which is something that they have been exploiting for the last ten years; that I'm afraid that real soon people will start to get a little bit tired of superhero films, specially films that introduce a new hero right from the beginning; so right now is a little too late to start releasing films about all the super heroes that you have.

2) And most importantly. With the exception of Batman, DC heroes do not work as well in the big screen as Marvel heroes, and this is the reason why: DC heroes are not as relatable to the audience as Marvel heroes are. Contrary to DC heroes, Marvel heroes are charismatic but the most important thing about them is that, it's really easy to relate to them (Spider Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine, even villains like Magneto) everybody can relate with at least one of them in some kind of way.  Almost any teenager can relate to Spider-Man specially nerdy boys, I'm sure that you know someone who behaves like Tony Stark and really relates to him. Anyone who considers himself a social recluse can relate to any of the X-Men or to Hulk. And this happens because Marvel heroes are imperfect, they have flaws which show their human side (even if they're mutants or something) that's what makes them relatable and that's what audiences want.



DC heroes on the other hand, they're not really that relatable and some of them are just too perfect that you can even consider them demi-Gods, honestly can anyone relate to Superman? or Green Latern? or Aquaman? or Martian Manhunter? No (well maybe some of you can) but my point is that those heroes just don't have that same effect and they will not be that interesting in the big screen to watch. And that's why I think that in an enviroment where Marvel's imperfect and charismatic heroes rule, there's no room for DC superheroes and they are basically destined to fail.

So I don't know what the hell is DC going to do now, a rushed Justice League film is destined to fail and we all know that.

There's only one thing that I know DC could do, to completely kick Marvel in the balls and reinvent the whole comic book film genre forever. I will summarize this in just one word ... Vertigo...

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Nolan's Bane: How to NOT Make a Villain

Ok, so finally I have watched "The Dark Knight Rises" and Oh BOY!...



...I really don't know what to think about this film.

Is not by any means a perfect film as a lot of people expected, I don't know yet if I could call it a Great film or a Good film.

But there are certain issues that really bothered me about this final part of the Nolan trilogy. And I'm not going to complain about the logistics, scientific facts or physics of the movie, like:

How Does Bruce Wayne Get Back to Gotham?

Why Does a Prison Exist Where People Can Possibly Climb To Freedom? 

The Unrealistic way that the bomb exploded or the unrealistic way that the bomb functioned.

because I know that in that territory the film is pretty flawed.

If you want to see more technical and logic problems of the film, here you go.

But you know, almost all action films have these type of flaws, specially superhero movies. But if you think about it; there are a lot of great films with a lot of technical and unrealistic flaws and they are still great films indeed, and I guess there are flaws that not even the almighty Nolan could surpass.

But anyway, as a lot of wise people said "Just ignore the technical stuff and enjoy the story", and that's what I always do, but still there are serious factors about the story that annoyed me.

There are 3 major factors about the story that simply made me consider this film the weakest of the trilogy.

1.- The obsession to make Batman a Messianic martyr of the people. Instead of the dark, underground, mysterious and symbolic vigilante figure that he really is.

2.- I feel that the film doesn't know what it wants to do or in what it wants to become, TDKR stars mainly as a noir film but eventually right in the middle of the film, it wants to become a dystopian film all of a sudden, with really poor results, that’s because the overall dystopian Gotham is not developed at all. We don’t even see the true nature of this environment within the people of Gotham, we just see cops trap inside a tunnel, bad guys with tanks in the streets and that’s it. There’s no development in the environment, you don’t really see the hell and chaos you should see. If you want to make this kind of environment effective you need to give it a lot of exposure and development. That’s why I think it would had been so much nicer and badass to start the film already in this dystopian state, develop it throughout the whole film and explain what happened with flashbacks. Instead of building this forced dystopia that nobody knew how it really worked and we only get to see until the third act.

And third and most important, the villain: Bane.



I have to admit that the Bane of TDKR is probably the most disappointing villain of the last couple of years. And here's the reason why: Trough out the hole bloody film we hear about Bane, all the stuff that he has done, all the stuff that he is doing, all the things that he has planned, they build the character as a truly bad ass brutal mastermind and that's perfect, that's exactly what they have to do, specially with his background.

I mean, uuuuh he's Bane, he escaped from a prison climbing a brutal enormous cylindrical wall and he has been the only to reach the top, and he did this while he was just a little kid.

uuuuh he's Bane, his the son of Ra's Al Ghul.

uuuuh he's Bane, he has an eternal vendetta against Batman.

uuuuh he's Bane, he's the leader of the League of Shadows.

uuuuh he's Bane, he planned all this mayhem.

They built this character as probably the greatest villain of Batman ever and suddenly, is like... uh remember all the things that we  said about this guy... well... it wasn't him... yes... yes that's right it was that new chick over there... yeah the one who is suddenly so important in the third act of the story and we pretty much ignored her throughout the whole film giving her almost no proper character development... yes... she's the one... she did all that.... uh, what did Bane did then?... uh... well, he... he... helped her.

And then BOOOM , this great and epic villain that they were able to form in this entire film is dead by a single motorcycle gun shoot, and he dies in both a physical and spiritual way. When a villain dies at least he still lives in a spiritual way when you remember all the things that he did, but we cannot do that with Bane, because he wasn't the true mastermind behind all of this, he wasn't that epic villain that you thought he was, he was basically just a goon, the thing that you least expected from him.

Is not the first time Nolan does this, he did it in Batman Begins with Ra's Al Ghul, but at least he did in a reverted form you know: when you have a really cool villain, but you think he's just a goon of someone else but actually it turns out that he's the actual leader and it's even more badass than you thought, that way really works, Ben from LOST is a living example. But don't do it the other way around.

That was the thing that just killed the character for me and a big part of the film, I know that I'm complaining a lot with this but in a superhero film, the villain is the most important character in the story. And I just hate when they fool you with the identity of the true villain. I mean that's ok in a Mystery, Thriller or Noir story, but not in an epic action superhero film, specially since you have promoted that villain in the marketing of your movie like crazy!!!

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